Defending the Separation of Laws! Keep Fanatics Off OUR Constitution!

Science Connects to Buddha Nature and Inner Consciousness

Everyone should learn the basic concepts of science and evolve with it. I’ve always loved science because it’s connected to everything around us, the trees, the birds, the insects to the foods we eat! The world is an amazing place! Having a degree in science, and coming from a family of Buddhists for many generations, I can understand the Dalai Lama’s interest and excitement in science, I’m still evolving. I agree, totally love Dhondup’s question, because my knowledge and understanding of science has helped me to understand Buddhism better, though I still have a lot more to learn about Buddhist teachings into consciousness, my inner being.

Wouldn’t mind taking the course myself, so I hope the scientists eventually bring the Buddhist science teaching model home to America, so we can educate ourselves here to.

Do bacteria require light?” Tashi, one of my best students, wants to know. He sits there in Dharamsala, India, like his Buddhist monk colleagues, cross-legged on the floor in maroon robes, six hours a day learning science from a tall white Jewish guy from North Carolina.

Religion often has a hard time of it, especially among academics, and especially among scientists. Of course academics have no problem studying religion and raising big money to establish endowed chairs, centers, and institutes devoted to just that. But when actually being religious or even discussing personal beliefs or spirituality at all, is rare and, if anything, discouraged. To me this is an odd and disturbing social conundrum: let’s take our best thinkers and idea-people, theorizers, and policy developers and eradicate any discussion of personal belief, religion, or spirituality from their official discourse. Brilliant.

So, it’s refreshing to be part of a project, an experiment really, in which academics are actively engaging religious tradition and belief. Even better, and ironically, this engagement is driven by scientists; the very folks many blame for hammering personal belief out of intellectual conversation in the West in the first place.